Monday, May 08, 2006

Fighting Ignorance - 'What is Genocide'

Buckdog has had first hand experience in the last few days dealing with ignorance on the meaning of the Holocaust and genocide. We took exception on Friday to a thread on the Canadian Taxpayers Federation blogsite (which has now disappeared). Discussion continued on Buckdog and we still have a blogger contributing his ignorance to the reasons why the Holocaust cannot - should not and will not be diminished. For the ignorant, take a moment and get informed by reading the following excerpt which we thank the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum for providing:

What is Genocide?

The term "genocide," which did not exist before 1944, is a very specific term, referring to massive crimes committed against groups. Human rights, as laid out in the U.S. Bill of Rights or the 1948 United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights, concern the rights of individuals.

In 1944, a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin (1900-1959) sought to describe Nazi policies of systematic murder, including the destruction of European Jewry. He formed the word "genocide" by combining geno-, from the Greek word for race or tribe, with -cide, from the Latin word for killing. In proposing this new term, Lemkin had in mind "a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves." The next year, the International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg charged top Nazis with "crimes against humanity." The word “genocide” was included in the indictment, but as a descriptive, not legal, term.

On December 9, 1948, in the shadow of the Holocaust and in no small part due to the tireless efforts of Lemkin himself, the United Nations approved the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. This convention establishes "genocide” as an international crime, which signatory nations “undertake to prevent and punish.” It defines genocide as:

[G]enocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:

* Killing members of the group; * Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; * Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; * Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; * Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

While many cases of group-targeted violence have occurred throughout history and even since the Convention came into effect, the legal and international development of the term is concentrated into two distinct historical periods: the time from the coining of the term until its acceptance as international law (1944–1948) and the time of its activation with the establishment of international criminal tribunals to prosecute the crime of genocide (1991–1998). Preventing genocide, the other major obligation of the convention, remains a challenge that nations and individuals continue to face.

Yup, those Nazi's were not nice people, no doubt about it, some of the worst. But they didn't hold a monopoly on cruelty or genocide and when you add it all up communism has lasted a lot longer and killed more people.

But what the hay I am willing to concede that we don't need either system on the planet.

What specifically established socialism in Nazi Germany was the price and wage controls in 1936.

After which there was a huge increase in government spending to fund these programs of public works, subsidies, and rearmament.

Enforcing these price-controls meant adopting all of the essential features of a totalitarian state. Such as establishing the category of "economic crime" in which the peaceful pursuit of material self-interest is treated as a criminal offense, and the establishment of a totalitarian police force with spies, informers and the power of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment.

You really should consider some post secondary education; I would recommend some classes in political science and history. You are really starting to embarrass yourself here now - (it is obvious to everyone who reads your posts). If you aren't going to pursue some higher education, then I urge you to apply for employment with the CTF!!

With all of the EXTREME nonsense you have been spewing here, you have done a pretty good job of putting yourself on the same page as Zundel. You are also digging yourself in deeper and deeper. A wise man/woman knows when to get out of an argument. "You cannot save both your ass and your face at the same time."

I didn't say it was my blog - but good attempt to ignore my comments. Here is David Maclean (who can't or won't defend himself on his own blog) making a statement that most people agree was offensive - including a nationaly sindicated columnist that has written books on this topic.

So they you come along and claim that you "apologize for no one".

First of all, you have only been a blogger since this story broke. Your profile said you were created in May. That's fine there is nothing wrong with that.

However, evey post you have made on blogger (do the search yourself) has been to argue with people who are disagreeing with David Maclean.

Either you are just David Maclean posting under another name (which he does on his blog all the time as r.s. porter and farmer joe) or you are just someone who is his lapdog I don't know. But to claim you are not apologizing for him is to deny your reason for being here.

David posted the following "Within three months in power, Castro and Che had shamed the Nazi prewar incarceration and murder rate."

That's like saying that a grenade expolding does more damage that a nuclear bomb right before the bomb goes off

Is it a true statment? yes. Is it a meaningful statement? no. It's a rediculous arbirtary stupid point.

Perhaps Che did commit more murders that the Nazis in thier "pre-war period" Che certinaly commited more murders that Hitler before Hitler was 2 years old.

To make stupid statements like this that twist the facts and use arbitrary timelines to achive a point can only mean that the person making the claims feels that Che was acutally worse that Hitler and thus the fact-twisting to suit thier purposes.

All your above posts about other horrors again miss the point. Just because other groups and organizations commit mass murder does not escuse twisting the facts to make a stupid point.

What is more evil throwing a gernade into a school room killing all the children or dropping a Nuke on it killing everybody within a hundred miles.

Here is a hint, they are both wrong. With the difference being degrees of destruction. Saying they are both wrong does not diminish one or the other.

If you want to focus on the nuke that's fine. But don't get on your high horse and try to trivialize what happened with the gernade, those were real people as well. And they deserve as much respect and dignity as everyone else.

Wow! Moneybags, for someone who is not David Maclean, you sure do remember that post that he deleted really well.

And good on you for finding the orginial article that he was talking about and linking to that.

David sure is lucky to have a friend like you looking out for him.

Anyway, on to the show.

At no point have I said Che was a good person, or that I agreed with him, or that he was not a mass murderer.

Wat I said was that to pick just the "pre-war" period of Hitler and claim that Che killed more people is a stupid statement, as I explanied above - it is a twisting of facts.

As for "But don't get on your high horse and try to trivialize what happened with the gernade, those were real people as well. And they deserve as much respect and dignity as everyone else."

You seem to have completly missed my point. My point was that using these sort of distinctions is silly becasue BOTH acts are wrong, but the bomb is worse - and to act otherwise is crazy.

Also interesting is if you truly belive that my hypothetical example of a bomb exploding is offensive becasue I am "minimizing" the "real people" who were affected (by my completly made-up example) then why the hell are you running around laying down your left nut for David Maclean who ACTUALLY TRIVIALIZED THE DEATHS OF REAL PEOPLE.

You want my standard for evil. Mass Murder. The more murders you commit the worse you are.

Thus Hitler, when examined over his entire life, is much worse than Che examined over his entire life.

And any other bogus time-line comparisons to make Che look wore is to minimiaze the deaths of the 6 million Jews in Hitler's concentration camps.

moneybags, your HATRED for communism is all fine and well - but maybe let's look at some of the groups who are not normally pegged with mass murder. For a start, how many people have been murdered by Christians? (Cathoics killing Protestants - Protestants killing Catholics - Protestants killing other Protestants - Inquisition - the Crusades). Literally millions of people killed by Christianity.

How about your own favourite USA - how many innocent babies and grandma's killed by Americans in Korea, Vietnam, Grenada? How about how the USA helped kill thousands in Chile, Nicaragua, Panama? How many native Indian people were killed by the United States government during their expansion westward?

The reason the Holocaust is SO particularly bad is because of the sheer number (6 million) who were 'guilty' of belonging to a particular race and the mass murder was done with industrial efficiency.

For you to decide that communism alone is bad and worse than any other form of humanity's cruel massacres is simplistic and so predictable of the 'right wing'.

Hmm, interesting I wasn't able to find the 'same' article only a similar one by the same author, he seems to have used the same quote in a number of articles. Though Zeker thinks it is the same article that started everything.

Makes one wonder whether Zeker actually read any of the original CTF entry.

Anyways...

The facts have not been twisted by anyone other than yourselves. Humberto Fontova(who incidently is the guy I'm sticking up for since they are his words and his research, not David Macleans) makes a legitimate comparision, and in the context he is using he is absolutely correct.

If he had compared Che's activities to the holocaust then he would be out of line. But he didn't. You did. You are the ones who are trying (and failing miserably) to change the context, to put words in Fontovo's mouth that he didn't say, all to draw the spotlight away from one of the left's favorite t-shirt\poster boys.

Anonymous, you really should take the time to read all the threads before passing judgement.

While communism meets Zecker's standard of mass murder as evil. And the more you murder the worse you are. I conceded early on that my hatred for the Nazi's is virtually identical because they did the same kinds of things to their own people on an industrial scale for the same reasons. Just like communists throughout history the world over.

I believe the Nazi's were evil, I believe communism is evil and I believe Che was evil. And the same standard of mass murder, torture, and cruelty to their own people, can be applied to all.

You and your little friends over at the Taxpayers Federation are shameless lobbyists for the extreme right wing in Canada. The fact that you are over at this site trying to justify your pathetic 'logic' is ridiculous. You are as phony as phony can be.